About Us

Building a Dream

The “budwood” of Willamette Valley Vineyards began long before its founding in 1983 by vintner Jim Bernau.

Jim’s dad, a Roseburg attorney, helped California winemaker Richard Sommer — who brought the first Pinot Noir vines into Oregon — secure one of Oregon’s first winery licenses since Prohibition. Small tastes of Richard’s wine at the dinner table inspired Jim’s early winemaking, leading him to study at UC Davis and later in Beaune, France.

Jim's early “winemaking” grew more from mischief when at the age of 10, he liberated his mom’s frozen Concord grape juice and followed the description of fermentation he found in the family’s set of encyclopedias.

In 1983, encouraged by pioneering winemakers moving from California, Jim cleared an old plum orchard in the Salem Hills, hidden beneath scotch broom and blackberry vines, to plant Pinot Noir. Without drip irrigation, he hand-watered the young vines using 17 lengths of 75-foot garden hose to get them through their first summer.

Willamette Valley Vineyards has grown its estate vineyards through collaborative partnerships and mergers with Oregon wine pioneers, including Bill Fuller of Tualatin Estate Vineyard (established in 1973), Dick and Betty O'Brien of Elton Vineyard (established in 1983) and Loeza Vineyard (planted in 2015 in honor of Vineyard Manager Efren Loeza).

Since the winery founding in 1983, stewardship of the land has been a key principle in our winemaking. Willamette Valley Vineyards practices environmentally sustainable farming and helped establish the Low Input Viticulture and Enology (LIVE) program. All estate vineyards are certified LIVE and Salmon-Safe; Bernau Estate is also biodynamic certified by Demeter.
 

Today
 

The original vineyard — known today as the Estate in the Salem Hills — welcomes guests for wine and food pairings, winery and barrel cellar tours, vineyard views, cozy fireplaces and an opportunity to take in the valley from a 65-foot lookout tower.

The winery’s barrel-aged Pinot Noir is sourced entirely from nearly 500 acres of estate vineyards farmed by hand using sustainable practices.

Our approach is to grow the highest quality fruit using careful canopy management and yield balance, to achieve wines that are truly expressive of the varietal and the place where they are grown.

We ferment and barrel each vineyard lot separately and display the best of these in our single vineyard designate bottlings. Our stylistic emphasis is on pure varietal fruit characters, with attention to depth, richness of mouthfeel and balance. The wines are a collaborative effort of the vineyard and winemaking team.

Among the winery’s unique distinctions is that it's owned by more than 20,000 wine enthusiasts (NASDAQ: WVVI & WVVIP). Jim’s vision of building a world-class Oregon winery with shareholder support has expanded to include sparkling winery Domaine Willamette in the Dundee Hills and four wine-focused restaurants across Oregon and Washington.

Backed by community support and guided by stewardship of the land, the winery earned recognition as “One of America’s Great Pinot Noir Producers” from Wine Enthusiast magazine.